Endangered fossils

[Jeff Hecht <jhecht@world.std.com>]

Thanks to Jerry Harris for posting the UNESCO document. The US certainly
isn't very good in living up to its treaty obligations, is it?

But that isn't what I wanted to mention. I am coauthor of a feature on
endangered fossils in this week's New Scientist, based in part on the
International Paleontological Association effort to compile a registry of
endangered fossils. (Contact Rich Lane at NSF for details, hlane@nsf.gov;
his plea in the latest issue of Lethaia.) One of the horror stories he
mentions is a Chinese dinosaur egg site where peasants are hoeing out
intact eggs and selling them, destroying broken eggs and the context of the
fossils in the process. That's one example of the underground fossil trade
run amok, literally destroying fossils, and -- at best -- turning a few
pretty fossils into curios of no scientific value. Rich Lane told me that a
Chinese palentologist's fervent description of that site a couple years ago
was the trigger for his effort.

His immediate goal is just to identify endangered sites, so they can be
publicizied and perhaps prioritized, and so scientists and the public will
know what they're losing. Poaching isn't the only problem. Some of the
sites are threatened by natural erosion; others by commercial or
agriculatural development. Vandalism and neglect are parts of the problem
at some sites.  If you know of endangered fossil sites, help get them on
the list. Listing endangered fossils -- like endangered living species --
is one of the first steps to protecting them.



Jeff Hecht     Boston Correspondent    New Scientist magazine
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tel 617-965-3834 fax 617-332-4760 e-mail jhecht@world.std.com
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